On December 19, the Louisiana legislature passed HB 17. The final version of the bill contains the Senate amendments.
The bill does not take effect until the 2026 election. It allows qualified parties to have nominees for Congress and some state offices, but not statewide executive officers nor legislators.
Independent voters may vote in a partisan primary. Primaries will be in March.
The bill makes ballot access considerably worse for non-presidential independent candidates. Formerly they could run with just a filing fee. Now they need a petition of 5,000 signatures for U.S. Senate, and 1,000 for U.S. House, and voters cannot sign if they are registered members of a qualified party. This provision is likely unconstitutional. A similar law in Arizona was struck down in 1999 in Campbell v Hull, and there are no precedents upholding such a restriction. Independent candidates are appealing to the entire electorate, and it makes no sense that some voters can’t sign for an independent, especially if they haven’t voted in a partisan primary.
The filing fee for independent presidential candidates rises from $500 to $1000, but because the bill does not take effect in 2024, that change does not affect the 2024 presidential election.
The bill says only qualifed parties that polled 5% for a statewide office in the last election may have a primary, and is silent about how smaller qualified partie nominate. Presumably they will nominate by convention. Here is a summary of the Senate amendments which became part of the bill.
